Procedural Parts? At the very least, unify the part sizes and variants?

[kspnerd122]

Procedural Parts would RUIN KSP DO NOT ADD THEM

reason being is that then it forces people to use things like KerbalX and also, the limitations make KSP more fun NOT LESS

[betaking]

I disagree, I think there's quite a bit of room to have parts that are both procedural, while also being optimized for a narrow set of ranges, such that there's a variety of parts to have.

 

Perhaps have it be an advanced tweakable? or perhaps have it be something else along those lines.

 

[Bej Kerman]

On 2/20/2020 at 6:00 PM, Fraston said:

I was never all that into procedural parts, as that takes all the fun out of finding the right engine.

Yeah, it would take all the fun out of tediously digging through the parts to find the right tank.

Edited April 23, 2020 by Bej Kerman

[Fraston]

3 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

Yeah, it would take all the fun out of tediously digging through the parts to find the right tank.

Which is fun in a masochistic sort of way.

[Incarnation of Chaos]

Procedural Engines i think would be a bit too much, but adding Procedural Fuel Tanks, Monoprop, Batteries and etc. Wouldn't be that hard; and anyone who enjoys the lego tanks would still have them. Adding procedural parts in no way implies removal of existing parts...

[Misguided Kerbal]

What about tweakscale? You can just scale up and down the parts you like.

[Incarnation of Chaos]

1 hour ago, Misguided_Kerbal said:

What about tweakscale? You can just scale up and down the parts you like.

It's more of a workaround than a true replacement for procedural parts, not to undermine the work the current maintainer has done at all. But tweakscale doesn't allow you to make arbitrary-sized versions of a given part; just scales them to what they "Would" be if they were a smaller or larger part. So while you can take a 1.25M tank and tweakscale it to a 3.5m tank; it will have the same length, dry mass to fuel ratio and colors the original part did. Where with a procedural system you could further optimize the individual part for your needs, trading dry mass for fuel mass at the cost of durablity or perhaps having completely different shapes than the current tanks. Or stretching the tank and coloring it a different scheme than it had originally.

That all being said; it's not impossible to use a similar system as tweakscale as a foundation for a procedural system.

[AlamoVampire]

On 4/2/2020 at 10:41 AM, kspnerd122 said:

Procedural Parts would RUIN KSP DO NOT ADD THEM

reason being is that then it forces people to use things like KerbalX and also, the limitations make KSP more fun NOT LESS

I think I can provide at least one example where procedural parts are vastly superior and easier to use than what we have right now. Keep in mind, the mod I am about to reference has since gone <I think> abandoned as I cannot seem to find an updated version of it on either spacedock OR curseforge. What mod am I talking about? Procedural Fairings. They came about as a mod back before KSP had a reason to have fairings, where things could be absurdly large and very absurdly designed payloads such as:  were possible. Oh sure they were needed with realism type modes, but, in stock, they were for purely aesthetic reasons. Then we got a stock reason to have them as aerodynamics became a thing and we got the fairings we all know today. 

What exactly am I going on about here? Well, its like this. When Procedural fairings were still being maintained you needed 2 parts and that was it to make them work. The fairing base and the fairing itself <your choice of conical or egg shaped>. How did they work? Simply by attaching the fairing bit to a single node on the fairing base with symmetry turned on it would automatically generate the fairings shape. No fuss, no muss. What we got instead was and to my opinion is a mess. You are forced to drag and click, drag and click, drag and click until done. It makes no allotment for payload revising and shape changing with out completely destroying the fairing and forcing you to restart. Whereas with Procedural Fairings, you simply took the fairing bit off the base, adjusted the payload, replaced the fairing bit and bam it reforms to the new size/shape instantly. This is one case where a procedural part in my opinion is far superior as in my opinion Procedural Fairing is the gold standard of what a fairing system should be. But, that's my opinion of course and others may dissent from my opinion. Just trying to provide a counter point to yours. Happy flying!

 

231904232020

[Bej Kerman]

On 4/24/2020 at 5:19 AM, AlamoVampire said:

Procedural Parts would RUIN KSP DO NOT ADD THEM

reason being is that then it forces people to use things like KerbalX and also, the limitations make KSP more fun NOT LESS

How do arbitrary limits make the game more fun?

[RealKerbal3x]

4 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

How do arbitrary limits make the game more fun?

Mainly because of the challenge they pose - you have a limited selection of parts to choose from to build your vessel, making your particular choice of parts important. With procedural parts, you take a pod, a heatshield, a fuel tank, and an engine, and just tweak them to meet your needs. Much easier, but not as fun, IMO.

That's why many people dislike the idea of procedural parts - they remove some of KSP's challenge. The LEGO-like parts are a large element of the game's character. If you want a space simulator based around procedural parts, go play Simple Rockets 2. It's a perfectly good space simulator, just missing what gives KSP its charm.

[AlamoVampire]

21 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

How do arbitrary limits make the game more fun?

Uh question: why are you attributing the quote you have under my name to me? It is in fact from @kspnerd122 . My viewpoint directly contradicts the idea that procedural parts are bad. I myself have stated numerous times that I wish they had integrated the mod procedural fairings as in my honest opinion its the gold standard that the fairings we got fell parsecs short of. My opinion of course. Again I am simply trying to understand why a different users words are being attributed to me. 
 

051605082020

[Bej Kerman]

3 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

Uh question: why are you attributing the quote you have under my name to me?

The way the forum works is beyond me. I completely agree with you.

On 4/2/2020 at 4:41 PM, kspnerd122 said:

Procedural Parts would RUIN KSP DO NOT ADD THEM

reason being is that then it forces people to use things like KerbalX and also, the limitations make KSP more fun NOT LESS

Let's try again: How do arbitrary limits make the game more fun?

[Bej Kerman]

20 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Mainly because of the challenge they pose - you have a limited selection of parts to choose from to build your vessel, making your particular choice of parts important. With procedural parts, you take a pod, a heatshield, a fuel tank, and an engine, and just tweak them to meet your needs. Much easier, but not as fun, IMO.

That's why many people dislike the idea of procedural parts - they remove some of KSP's challenge. The LEGO-like parts are a large element of the game's character. If you want a space simulator based around procedural parts, go play Simple Rockets 2. It's a perfectly good space simulator, just missing what gives KSP its charm.

They remove some of KSP's challenge? Searching through endless lists is not challenge. It's just hard work that wastes time better spent actually flying creations, and most of all, leads to fuel tanks stacked on fuel tanks bloating part counts. "With procedural parts, you just take a couple rocket components and just tweak them" Well what if I want to do more than a sub-orbital hop? Obviously there will still be challenge in maximising Delta-V, which is a core part of the game and won't be changed by procedural parts. "LEGO-like parts is part of the character and charm" The PS1's graphics had charm. But we haven't let that stagnate the development of graphics and technology. I can't imagine playing Minecraft with wobbly textures that morph depending on what angle you look at them from.

It's not just making the VAB and SPH's endless lists of lookalike parts less tedious. It's reducing part counts as I said earlier and letting people on lower spec devices build larger things and do more stuff.

Not to mention, when... Just when... did I say I wanted LEGO parts gone? You have your list, I'll have my working rocket that I didn't need to spend hours on looking for the right parts.

[RealKerbal3x]

3 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Searching through endless lists is not challenge.

I'm not talking about the 'challenge' of searching through lists. There's a search function in the parts catalogue if you can't find a particular part. It's how you need to choose particular parts and put them together in the right way, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all procedural engine and just bumping up the Isp, or whatever. I want to have to think 'OK, what engine would be best for this craft?'

10 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

It's not just making the VAB and SPH's endless lists of lookalike parts less tedious.

This could easily be alleviated without the need for procedural parts with a better way to search and sort part categories in the editor. For example: a way to only show 1.25m fuel tanks.

15 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

It's reducing part counts as I said earlier and letting people on lower spec devices build larger things and do more stuff.

...Or the developers could optimise the game further. It's been confirmed that KSP 2 will not have procedural parts, and that even lower-power computers will be able to construct vehicles with 1000+ parts.

Besides, this discussion is irrelevant as far as I'm aware. LEGO-like parts have been a big part of KSP ever since early access, and even if procedural parts were simply added alongside the existing LEGO parts, it would represent a big change in the way people build things in the game. And with KSP 2 releasing soon (without procedural parts) and SQUAD probably going into maintenance mode for KSP 1 as a result, I doubt we'll ever see procedural parts in stock KSP. Good luck with your mods, personally I'm not in the mood to continue an argument  

[AlamoVampire]

@Bej Kerman lol, ya the forums can do some funky things at times. ive been here since august 2013 and I don't even know how half this stuff works lol. im lucky if I can correctly link a thread 

 

001505092020

[Incarnation of Chaos]

On 5/7/2020 at 11:58 AM, RealKerbal3x said:

Mainly because of the challenge they pose - you have a limited selection of parts to choose from to build your vessel, making your particular choice of parts important. With procedural parts, you take a pod, a heatshield, a fuel tank, and an engine, and just tweak them to meet your needs. Much easier, but not as fun, IMO.

That's why many people dislike the idea of procedural parts - they remove some of KSP's challenge. The LEGO-like parts are a large element of the game's character. If you want a space simulator based around procedural parts, go play Simple Rockets 2. It's a perfectly good space simulator, just missing what gives KSP its charm.

If you had all parts available from the beginning of a career save would there still be that challenge? I doubt there would be.

The limited selection of parts is only a single component of KSP's "Challenge", and not a major one. The primary challenge in KSP comes from balancing those individual parts to produce an optimal vehicle for a particular mission profile, and that profile is what gives most of the challenge we see in KSP.

Procedural Parts could easily be balanced against LEGO parts during early-mid game by restricting how you could dimension them, what sizes were available or even what applications they could be used for. And you could also balance them by just tweaking what mission profiles in KSP2 exist from the beginning. I don't see a mun mission really having much advantage with procedural parts over LEGO/Standard parts, but for a interstellar ship?

And that also brings us to the tech tree and funds, which could be additional levers to adjust the balance of procedural parts. Nothing says your first procedural parts have to be the same cost as a similar lego part, making custom tankage is expensive and time consuming afterall. And they could be unlocked mid or even endgame, so that you have to use LEGO parts for the bulk of the game.

 

[Bej Kerman]

20 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

and even if procedural parts were simply added alongside the existing LEGO parts, it would represent a big change in the way people build things in the game.

Is it really that hard for you to just ignore the list of procedural parts that only has one battery, one tank, etc?

20 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

I'm not talking about the 'challenge' of searching through lists. There's a search function in the parts catalogue if you can't find a particular part. It's how you need to choose particular parts and put them together in the right way, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all procedural engine and just bumping up the Isp, or whatever. I want to have to think 'OK, what engine would be best for this craft?'

Right, because real space agencies can't just design their own engines. 'OK, what engine would be best for this craft?' is just mostly 'Hmm, where do I even start finding this engine I want? I can't use search because engines and tanks are named with the roll of a dice and some random code-sounding letters, and it's like each part goes by its own unique art style'. Also, what about people who don't like LEGO? Yeah, these people exist, me being one of them. I don't like LEGO and I don't like how KSP just stuck to LEGO because it worked in 0.7.3 when there were only a couple of parts to choose from.

With that said, I'm glad that KSP 2 is getting procedural parts. It means that I'll finally be able to build N1s, Starship Superheavys, etc. and all other sorts of rockets with non-conventional shapes and cross sections without being restricted by KSP 1's LEGO and endless part lists.

On 4/24/2020 at 5:19 AM, AlamoVampire said:

What exactly am I going on about here? Well, its like this. When Procedural fairings were still being maintained you needed 2 parts and that was it to make them work. The fairing base and the fairing itself <your choice of conical or egg shaped>. How did they work? Simply by attaching the fairing bit to a single node on the fairing base with symmetry turned on it would automatically generate the fairings shape. No fuss, no muss. What we got instead was and to my opinion is a mess. You are forced to drag and click, drag and click, drag and click until done. It makes no allotment for payload revising and shape changing with out completely destroying the fairing and forcing you to restart. Whereas with Procedural Fairings, you simply took the fairing bit off the base, adjusted the payload, replaced the fairing bit and bam it reforms to the new size/shape instantly. This is one case where a procedural part in my opinion is far superior as in my opinion Procedural Fairing is the gold standard of what a fairing system should be. But, that's my opinion of course and others may dissent from my opinion. Just trying to provide a counter point to yours. Happy flying!

Ugh, making fairings for my payloads are my least favourite part of designing rockets. Not only that, but I have to go into the right-click menu to change all the terrible defaults. Why isn't clamshell deploy on by default?

[RealKerbal3x]

17 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

With that said, I'm glad that KSP 2 is getting procedural parts. It means that I'll finally be able to build N1s, Starship Superheavys, etc. and all other sorts of rockets with non-conventional shapes and cross sections without being restricted by KSP 1's LEGO and endless part lists.

 

20 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

It's been confirmed that KSP 2 will not have procedural parts

Anyway, I'm going to stop involving myself in this pointless discussion. Goodbye.

Edited May 9, 2020 by RealKerbal3x

[AlamoVampire]

@Bej Kerman I wish I knew why squad did what they did with the <my opinion> dismal stock fairings we have. Why they chose to not use what is in my opinion the perfect system for fairings and instead again, did what they did is beyond me. I can speculate until I turn smurf blue and still probably be lightyears away from the correct answer. As to why we are forced to click each time every time into clamshell is beyond me. Another user gave me a module manager config file made by yet another user that resets the stock fairings to clamshell by default. I have 0 clue how to post in code, SO, instead, I will just copy paste it in with ---- a few lines above and below it and a helpful moderator should they see my post has my permission to change it to an inserted code post as again, I don't know how to do it. It may already do it by default, but, I am going to guess it wont. Again the ---- above/below are not part of the code.

 

----

 

// Default fairings to Clamshell
// Author: Alshain
@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleProceduralFairing]]:FINAL
{
    @MODULE[ModuleProceduralFairing]
    {
        useClamshell = true
        ejectionForce = 1000
    }
}

 

 

----

the code in that box stops just under that final } and starts at the // . I hope this helps. Again, any helpful moderators who know how to make that a proper code insert <if it doesn't happen automatically> please adjust it accordingly

 

232405092020

Edited May 10, 2020 by AlamoVampire
fixed a symbol in my ending statement. 232505092020

[Bej Kerman]

On 5/9/2020 at 11:58 AM, RealKerbal3x said:

On 5/9/2020 at 11:41 AM, Bej Kerman said:

With that said, I'm glad that KSP 2 is getting procedural parts. It means that I'll finally be able to build N1s, Starship Superheavys, etc. and all other sorts of rockets with non-conventional shapes and cross sections without being restricted by KSP 1's LEGO and endless part lists.

 

On 5/8/2020 at 3:01 PM, RealKerbal3x said:

It's been confirmed that KSP 2 will not have procedural parts

Anyway, I'm going to stop involving myself in this pointless discussion. Goodbye.

I don't know what you've been reading, but what I've been reading says it will have procedural parts.

[Citizen247]

On 4/24/2020 at 5:19 AM, AlamoVampire said:

When Procedural fairings were still being maintained you needed 2 parts and that was it to make them work

The Forum post hasn't been updated, but Procedural Fairings are being maintained and seeing active development.

Github release for KSP 1.8-1.9

https://github.com/KSP-RO/ProceduralFairings/releases/tag/v1.8.1

 

[AlamoVampire]

@Citizen247 you sir! You just absolutely made my day!! Thank you!!

162605102020

[betaking]

On 5/8/2020 at 10:01 AM, RealKerbal3x said:

I'm not talking about the 'challenge' of searching through lists. There's a search function in the parts catalogue if you can't find a particular part. It's how you need to choose particular parts and put them together in the right way, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all procedural engine and just bumping up the Isp, or whatever. I want to have to think 'OK, what engine would be best for this craft?'

This could easily be alleviated without the need for procedural parts with a better way to search and sort part categories in the editor. For example: a way to only show 1.25m fuel tanks.

...Or the developers could optimise the game further. It's been confirmed that KSP 2 will not have procedural parts, and that even lower-power computers will be able to construct vehicles with 1000+ parts.

Besides, this discussion is irrelevant as far as I'm aware. LEGO-like parts have been a big part of KSP ever since early access, and even if procedural parts were simply added alongside the existing LEGO parts, it would represent a big change in the way people build things in the game. And with KSP 2 releasing soon (without procedural parts) and SQUAD probably going into maintenance mode for KSP 1 as a result, I doubt we'll ever see procedural parts in stock KSP. Good luck with your mods, personally I'm not in the mood to continue an argument  

let me rephrase the concept (at least how I envision it):

you've got a "lego list like" selection of tanks/parts sort of similar to what we have now.

I was going to write up a whole pseudocode thing about this but I'm not sure that it would illustrate the point I was trying to make clearly enough.

Essentially imagine you've got the list of lego-like assortment of fuel-tanks we have presently; But where parts can be stretched and/or squished to varying degrees. Doing so changes their internal volume AND the dry-Mass/Volume ratio according to curves. (essentially each of these "proceedural-legotanks" has an "optimum size" that is different from the other "procedural-legotanks" , which creates a point to the variety beyond mere aesthetics).

Wings obviously I'd like to have in a legolike-procedural-fashion as well, though that would obviously be more complicated; involving wing-loading, chord, optimization for different speeds, wet-wings.

 

[lolkekov]

On 5/10/2020 at 12:12 PM, Citizen247 said:

The Forum post hasn't been updated, but Procedural Fairings are being maintained and seeing active development.

Github release for KSP 1.8-1.9

https://github.com/KSP-RO/ProceduralFairings/releases/tag/v1.8.1

 

Many thanks! Now I know what to do on the weekend